Who did a better job than first-year Saucon Valley girls basketball coach Jerry Calabrese, who lost his best player to an ACL injury a few days after he was named coach over the summer?

The Panthers lost their first four games as they grew accustomed to playing without junior Abby Omdahl, who averaged 14.4 points a game last season and was a sure-fire 1,000-point career scoring candidate before injuring her knee in a summer league game.

"The girls could have quit after our start but they stuck with it and came to practice and worked hard every day," said Calabrese, who went 40-78 in five seasons at Freedom from 2007-11 and qualified for districts twice. "That's what I give them the biggest credit for. We learned our roles and became a productive team."

Junior guard Elyssa Okken (10.2 ppg) not only runs the point for the Panthers and leads the team in scoring but also is a defensive stopper who has limited some of the best scorers in the Colonial League this season. Paige Priestas (6.4), a 5-foot-10 forward, and guard Bridget Gilmore (6.5) are the only seniors in Calabrese's seven-player rotation.

Saucon Valley beat Palisades 40-36 in its final game of the season in a complete team effort to qualify for districts. Okken held Pirates' star Karlee Krchnavi to seven points below her 18-point average while O'Donnell scored nine points, Gilmore and Priestas had eight apiece, Spirk had seven and Omdahl tallied six in her first game of the season.

"She's still restricted," Calabrese said of Omdahl. "She played about four minutes. She won't start in the next game."

The next game, ironically, is against the same Palisades team it beat to qualify for its second Class AAA district appearance in three seasons.

"Obviously, it's going to be a challenge to go down there and win," Calabrese said. "No matter what, though, I'm so proud of how these girls regrouped. They stuck to it and handled everything that came their way. Hopefully, they can get some rewards out of it."